Crumbs Is required for the Function and Morphology of Fly Johnston’s Organ

Abstract

A Drosophila antenna is a tripartite organ, which consists of Johnston’s organ (JO) in the second segment. Johnston’s organ is involved in various mechanosensory functions including the detection of touch, gravity, wind, and sound (Heinzel and Gewecke, 1987; Camhi and Johnson, 1999; Staudacher et al., 2005; Budick et al., 2007; Sane et al., 2007; Bender and Frye, 2009; Kamikouchi et al., 2009; Yorozu et al., 2009; Sun et al., 2009). Johnston’s organ is gaining attention for hearing or detecting sound in last few decades. Like other chordotonal organ, during development of the larvae, JO develop from the single organ precursor cell (SOPs). These SOPs are developmentally specified by the proneural gene atonal (ato) (Jarman et al., 1993, 1995), which is conserved in vertebrate and is responsible for cochlear hair cells of vertebrate ears (Bermingham et al.,1999; Millimaki et al., 2007).